At Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) home field in Chepauk, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) secured a much-needed victory to snap a five-match losing streak. In the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) season, this was SRH’s third victory, while CSK lost for the seventh time and fell further behind in the standings.
Talking Points
The tight overs of the SRH bowlers
After winning the toss, SRH captain Pat Cummins decided to bowl first, and his team benefited greatly from the choice. The SRH bowlers applied pressure right away by preventing the CSK hitters from scoring runs at will and capturing wickets frequently. The most impressive player with the ball was Harshal Patel, who took four wickets at an economy rate of 7.00. With two wickets apiece, Pat Cummins and Jaydev Unadkat contributed to bowling CSK out for a respectable 154.
The Chennai Super Kings bowlers’ valiant efforts were in vain.
The CSK bowlers lost discipline when faced with a below-average total to defend, giving up multiple extra deliveries that facilitated SRH’s chase. Eleven wides and two no-balls were conceded by the bowlers, giving SRH vital runs and momentum that helped them maintain control of the chase and win easily.
SRH and CSK’s batting performances were average.
The SRH bowlers continuously hit solid lengths, thus limiting the scoring rate and applied pressure throughout the first innings, which caused CSK’s batters to struggle. The only two standout performers for CSK were Ayush Mhatre (30 off 19) and Dewald Brevis (42 off 25), while the remainder of the batting order was ineffective. Additionally, SRH’s pursuit was not without its challenges. But Kamindu Mendis made a vital late appearance, batting 32 off 22 deliveries, while Ishan Kishan steadied the innings with a solid 44 off 34 balls, leading SRH to a resounding victory.
Who Said What?
MS Dhoni, CSK (Losing Captain)
We kept losing wickets, and in the first innings the wicket was slightly better and 155 is not a justifiable score, because it wasn’t turning a lot. Yes, after the 8-10th over, it became slightly two-paced when it comes to the fast bowlers, but nothing that was out of the ordinary, I feel we could have put few more runs on the board. Yes, second innings there was a bit of help, our spinners the quality was there and they bowled in the right areas and it was stopping a bit but we were short by 15-20 runs.
I think he (Brevis) batted really well and we need something like that in the middle order where we have slightly struggled when the spinners come in, that’s a time we need to either you do it by batsmanship, where you pick up your areas or try to play the big shot in your area, I feel that’s where we have been lacking and not been really able to dominate or get runs against spinners at good pace in the middle.
In a tournament like this, if you have one or two areas where you can plug in the holes it is good, but if majority of your players are not doing well, it becomes very difficult, because you have to do a few changes, but if majority are doing well then you guy those guys that extra few games and if it doesn’t work out than you move onto the next one, but if 4 of them are not performing at the same time, you are bound to make that change,
because you can’t just keep on going because we are not putting enough runs on the board, because it is essential right now, the game has changed. I am not saying it is always 180-200, but assess the conditions and then look to put the runs on the board.
Pat Cummins, SRH (Winning Captain)
That was great. Few things came together tonight. Boys played well. Good to see a few smiles. Was pretty clinical. Couple of guys at the top looked like taking the game on. In these conditions, threw Klaasen at the top and Nitish to finish it off. Our record here isn’t great. Be more clinical going forward but pleased with the win.
Harshal Patel, Player of the Match
Very pleasing win. We have been trying the same in the 3-4-5 games but some of the pieces have been missing in every single game . For all of it to come together, when we need to win all our games is pretty pleasing. I figured out pretty early, hitting the lengths and keeping it at the sticks was important. It was tough to hit the horizontal bat shots.
I wanted the batters to hit me over square leg and mid-wicket. So, I kept pulling the length back and mixing my pace up. Was trying to bowl length to him. Wasn’t trying to bowl wide. But glad it came off. For me, having my family helps me to switch off. It makes me feel that cricket is not the be all and end all of it.
India
